This Is Goodbye

Dear muse of writing, 

Like any other one of my relationships you walked in unannounced and transformed my world! You showed up on a long subway ride, early in the morning: A day that began as dull and normal as any. Then suddenly I could feel the words riding up, about to pour out from in-between my teeth, dripping from my fingers, bursting out of my ears, pockets, and swirming out of my gut. 

I had become possessed. 

All of a sudden, my entire existence revolved around my addiction of picking and arranging words. Everything became a thing to write about: affectionate conversations in the distance, and sentecens floating in the air. Graffti on heavy iron doors, and friendships too beautiful and pure to describe. I wrote thoroughout the highs and lows; the peaks and valleys of emotional rollercoasters. I wrote of unrequited love and of childhood crushes.

By writing, I tip toed through the broken glass of  my traumas, hearbreaks and failed romances: picking up pieces here and there, careful not to cut myself open. I healed and wrote of a sad, miserable marriage. I wrote to surive a journey of a one-way love affair I had never experienced before. 

I sewed the dusty spines of nostalgia to the seams of an unkown future and wrote about a thing called “home”. 

I wrote self deprecating jokes, and eulogies of tragic events. I worte of the injustices of the world and sobbed while the words crawled out of me achingly: fertile with things to say.
I held the mirror closer and closer like a magnifying glass: vulnerable and ready to birth story after story. 

I daydreamed about writing fantastical stories that change the world one day. I opened my heart and let it bleed with my truth. I come from the middle east, I was born with too much pain built-in and writing has been my constant companion through the repeated loss of hope in humanity.

Then you left. 

I can’t pinpoint the exact moment, but the passage of time has not been kind since your departure. Now the more I look for you the harder you are to reach. The more I crave you the more distant you become. I am paralyzed by your absence. I need you in order to make sense of the world because I’ve forgotten any other way of living. Through all of my pain and heartbreak, nothing has been more dreadful than losing the magic of illuminating words.

I promise I’ve looked everywhere: In many corners of a white page; In poetry, ancient stories, songs, old photographs, and even within myself. The moment I reach out I feel you slip away like a small, hurt animal, terrified to come out from hiding.
Dearest muse: Im going to stop looking; I surrender. 

How ironic that my goodbye letter is brimming  with coherence. But alas, I feel you slipping away again. 
Thank you for stopping by, but this is goodbye. At least for now.

Forever grateful, 

Atoosa